Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 104141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
I grinned.
Thank God, Rin kidnapped the stylist. Now she’ll be here to do other styles.
Nyomi exhaled.
I whispered in her ear, “You like when I touch you like that?”
“Yes.”
“Then, I’ll do it more.”
Hiro got on his side and propped himself on his elbow beside her. Close, but careful with the distance.
Very smart brother.
The three of us filled the bed without crowding it. Her warmth ran between us, without being asked or directed, finding its way into every space until the very air smelled like her. Black amber and ripe plum threading into our souls.
Peace.
I sat with that word.
Earlier tonight I had been buried alive with graveyard dirt pressing down over my face and I had smiled through all of it because the Dragon had no other choice.
Now, I was here in this room with my Tiger's weight against my chest and my hand moving through her braids and the sound of my brother's soothing voice filling the space.
This is good. I didn’t know I needed this.
I looked at Hiro over the top of Nyomi's head.
But. . .did he know I needed it?
I thought back to the way he'd strong-armed his way into the elevator, into this room, into this bed.
Had he looked at me at the dinner table and seen what I could not show?
Had he watched me eat, laugh, and raise my sake cup and known—the way only Hiro ever knew—that underneath all of it his brother was suffocating?
He would never say so. His true intentions would always be a mystery.
He would never sit beside me and ask if I was okay either.
Never offer comfort.
But if he were worried about me, he would simply appear, loud, ridiculous, and completely impossible to remove.
He would fill the room with noise until the grief had nowhere left to stand.
You always know.
I looked back at the ceiling.
The buried feeling had not disappeared. It was still there, below the sternum where I kept it. But it had loosened enough that I could breathe without counting the breaths.
Hiro had done that.
Nyomi had done that.
Between the two of them—this woman who fed my soldiers and this brother who refused to leave—I had been pulled, increment by increment, back toward the surface.
Hiro broke the comfortable silence. "This is so out of character for Kenji. I've never seen him act this way with any woman. Not even when we were teens."
I frowned. "Act like what?"
“The possessiveness and the flexing.”
“I was not flexing. I was stretching.”
"Both pecs jumped? In sequence?" Hiro chuckled.
Nyomi shrugged. "I'm fine with him flexing or stretching."
You'll get a better view later.
"I bet you are." Hiro took the bottle from her and sat up. "Just know that you are the only one to make the Dragon flex like a ridiculous idiot."
She looked up at me and blushed. "I like that information."
"He's got it bad for you." Hiro took a long swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Before you, I thought Kenji was a heartless asshole with women."
"What?" I pulled Nyomi slightly closer. "Why would you think that?"
"When you fucked a woman, you didn't care who had her? Me. The Claws. The Fangs. You treated women like they were fucking hors d'oeuvres at a party."
I shrugged. "Just because I was fucking them, didn’t mean they were my women. They could be with who they wanted."
"Yet tonight." Hiro reached over and offered me the bottle.
I took it. "What about tonight?"
"Tonight, you were losing your mind with the Claws hugging Nyomi."
"Baby." My Tiger looked back at me. "I know you weren't tripping over that. Right?"
"Some of the hugs lasted too long."
"See!" Hiro fell back onto the bed and laughed. "You've turned my brother out."
I frowned. "I'm not turned out."
"Brother, you are so far past turned out. So pussy whipped that whipped is a small dot behind you."
"I'm not—"
"You flexed your pectoral muscles."
"I was stretching."
"You were peacocking." Hiro turned to Nyomi. "What do you think, Tora?"
She held up her hands. "I'm not involved in this."
“Smart answer.” Hiro sat back up and studied me. "Actually. Speaking of you two having sex—"
"No one was speaking of it." I took a swig of the sake.
Hiro pointed. "What was happening in that teahouse this morning?"
Nyomi's color rose in her face as she reached for the sake bottle. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Hiro watched her take the bottle. "The two of you were on a stone slab. Half naked. Instruments laid out like there was an operation happening or possibly a car engine being rebuilt. I think I saw a blowtorch. I don't know. Lots of weird shit."
Nyomi chuckled against the mouth of the bottle.
Hiro kept his eyes on me. "And your chest and arms had all these dark pinkish slashes. What kind of freaky shit did you both do the night before?"
Nyomi shrugged one shoulder. "Normal stuff."
I gestured toward the bottle. "Have a drink and don't worry about what we were doing."